I just got off the phone talking with a friend I haven’t spoken to since last autumn, and we had a lot of catching up to do, since I’m hardly on Facebook these days, and therefore I’m missing out on what everyone else is up to. When Mareike asked me how I am doing, I told her almost with a little pride that I really enjoy „my chasing slow“ (my new motto to live by) and living life with less of just about everything. „Less is more“ and „simplify“ seems my new magic formulas, and that goes from acquiring and having less „stuff“ to being less online. Once I stopped rushing through life, I realized with a happy heart of how much more life I had time for. I am truly grateful for every moment, consciously, consideredly, slowly. Productive, but not busy. Smarter, but not harder. It almost seems like I have gone back in time, and live like in the good ol’ days offline, meeting real people in real life. I turned off all the notifications on my phone (what a life and time savor!), and I also jumped on the yoga bandwagon (she’s a yoga teacher when she’s not hosting a down syndrome online congress) a year ago and absolutely enjoy it.

When I tried to convince her to also open up an instagram account so that she can spread her message through another social channel, I all of a sudden found myself sounding quite contradictory. Ha! On the one hand I had decided a while ago to cut back my social media presence and use it more intentionally, and then I encourage her to jump in there. 😉

I guess – like with everything in life – balance and living more mindfully is the secret formula. Social media can be both, a curse and a blessing. It can really make us depressed, because we automatically compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel. It is also highly addictive, because all the likes and followers increase our dopamin levels and we crave more and more of that. But then it can be a blessing too, because we can stay in touch with our friends and families and see what’s going on in their lives.

For us artists it’s also a beautiful way to show our work, inspire people, or to encourage and empower everyone who might need a little lift-me-up. And this is what I truly love and enjoy. I love showing women how beautiful they are. Showing them how I see them makes my heart full.

With that in mind, I have opened up another social media account: connywenkphotography, where I (once in a while) wanna happily show my second big love and passion: women’s portraiture. Please feel free to follow along if you like, I would love to see you guys there!

Have a great sunny weekend, everyone!